TYLER - Key Persons
Yeah, I am being a jerk of a boss. I call it being a recovering aihole of boss, I self admit it. And I put it out there and everybody that I talked to my business, because it makes me makes me human, you know, versus being the CEO. Hey, man, this is uh, this guy's admitting that he's a recovering aihole Boss. Yes. So it puts me in my place and reminds me that but, you know, we don't put up with jerks in our company. We want employees to be happy with who they're working with who they're being bugged by. And I think company culture, since I've focused on it, number one reason why we're growing and why we're successful and why the gym owners enjoy habits in their gym is that we have good people. They don't have jerks, you know, making making their customers mad or getting into scuffles with their own employees. So that's been very important.
My father, you know, he's had a couple businesses when I was growing up as a kid, you know, success, successful, some not. He became a successful real estate broker, and so forth. And then eventually turned that into becoming a farmer. So I know a lot of hard work. Yeah, saw him do his journey. He was never afraid to take chances and do what's best for his family, as a business owner, or as an employee somewhere. So that was good. That was a good example. And then my brother, my older brother is four years older than me, and he was always just entrepreneurial making money even at school. So he dropped out of school when he was 17, almost 18 years old, and became a real, you know, a millionaire off of real estate by the time he was 21. And so I was seeing that happen. And I'm like, Man, I gotta do something that so I've always had a job. And I've just always been competitive and independent minded and always had that mindset of I want my own thing. And so before I started on the personal training, I probably had 20 or 25 different occupations from the Time Out I was like 16 at a time that I was 34. And a big one was I was a golf professional. I might look like too big to be a golf pro now. But back in my day, I was like 170 180 pounds. And I was pretty good at golf. And I learned how to play golf for a while and teach golf. And I became an apprentice in a PGA Teaching Program. And so I was always making money that way. So I thought, Man, I'm pretty, I'm doing pretty good. I make $30 every half hour session. So it's kind of like giving training sessions like I do now. But it was just a one man show. And so I did that for quite a few years. And everybody thought I was crazy, man, you get to play golf, half the day teach golf half the other half of the day, like, what's, what's your net, the love about what you're doing? Right. But I think what it was is I come from team sports growing up baseball star basketball star. And I think being part of a team was something I was longing for. So in 2005, my first taste of fitness was with a company called LA Fitness, one of the largest healthcare companies in the world, if not, you know, some for sure America. And so I worked with him for a couple years, and I quit the golf business because of it, because I'm like, man, these guys are making, there's a lot of money to be made in the membership management of it all, I didn't realize how much money fitness gyms and managers could make. And so I got my first taste of that, and worked for them for a couple years. The next step of my business, my gym fitness was I left them after a couple years and joined a company that does what I do now, which is outsource personal training. And I thought, this is pretty cool. You don't have any overhead, you just have personnel and you contract with gym owners, maybe I can do that. And so instead of just rushing right into, like, I'm gonna go do this and try it on my own, I did the methodical thing of I'm gonna work for these guys and see how high I can get, maybe it's better to go that route, maybe I can earn an ownership position or with them or something. And I was just very good at what I did, and became upper management quick, but just never get an equity stake. And so my longing always was so for 2005 2013, I worked for other people. And finally, 2013 I said, I'm done with this. I'm gonna start my own company. And I got my first first location and my first break, so to speak to make that
Yeah, so the story on that is, I'm not embarrassed to say it. But as an adult, I went broke probably three or four times I was reckless with my money, I was a great salesperson, I'm always able to, I spent it as fast as I made it every month, because I'm like, I did it last month, I can make it again this month. And so just being young and dumb that way with living a lot faster lifestyle than I should have. That was just always chasing the paycheck and all that I wasn't very much of an investor I didn't really follow through on my my brother was talking about, which is invest in real estate and other assets. And just you know, always chasing that next paycheck, the next opportunity with a with another business or company that was working for. And so when it came time to where I finally got, wow, I've gotten a health club that wants me to be their personal training company, this will be my first chance to do that. And no money as back at home living with my parents at the age of 34. For a couple of months, I just called taking a break, checking on your parents, you know, but that was up there. And I was like, What do I do? So that's kind of at that point of what am I going to find I got that break during that month to make a phone call talking to gym owners. Finally get that first one to say yes to me. And I needed money. So I went to my brother Hatton hand and said, Hey, bro, I need somebody to get started. And he's he took a chance on me. He's like, all right, because I've borrowed money in the past from businesses pay them back. So everything was good. And he's like, how much do you need? I said, I just need $2,500 I need to buy a laptop. I need to be able to go 2000 miles south and get into an apartment. And the rest is I'll take care of the rest. And so that's how I started element personal training, moved from Wisconsin, down to the most southern part of Texas called heartland and down there by corporate. South Padre Island Brownsville area.
Yeah. So throughout the years, I've gone into and out of about 70 different locations. Right now. We're, gosh, we're approaching 40 Strong locations right now. Wow. Spread across five states.
you know, when I was working for other companies in the beginning kind of doing my research, yeah, they had it set up as just a guaranteed base rent and were ran into trouble is that there was really no upside for the gym owner. You know, like, Hey, can I make more than that? And then when they find out how much the personal training was actually making, they're like, well, we get the short end of the stick, right? And, you know, so it kind of caused some friction among the gym owner, who I call gym partners, and the outsource company. And so I said, when I started my company, I would do a win win, I'm going to guarantee you a bass track, that's what you want, you do want to guarantee a skin off my back, right? You want to make sure I have something at risk. But I want you to work with us to help promote the personal training and get people signed up for membership put help you just have good symbiotic relationship, which I didn't see before and the other companies and create a win win. So if we do better, then you make more than our base rent. So it's a it's a good win win that way. So it's a base rent or a revenue rent, whichever one earns them the most during the month.
Absolutely. We are basically essentially personnel business, right? Because that's really my only overhead. I don't have the retail center that I'm paying rent to like the gym owner, I don't have equipment payments. I don't have to pay the utilities. I'm just in there as a personnel basically. So our business is personnel. So yeah, recruitment, pre COVID, it was easier to recruit post COVID very difficult recruitment market. I think a lot of people are accustomed to living on less than a hat or some sort of benefits and so forth. But also, there's a lot more as we open up the economy fully, a lot of competition out there, that people have other options to earn a living. And so personnel is definitely hiring them finding them is the is probably the just constant challenge force.
Well think of it this way, in this competition, but think about this way. There's online dating sites, right? Yep. But if you never get the physical contact of dating, you know, it's not the same experience, right? It's like Karianna online dating thing. But you know, What We All Long For is that physical attention, that physical contact. So I think the advantage of still a personal trainer is that people still long to go in and be motivated by an individual be held accountable in the showing up, you have access to a lot more than a total great product. I think it's super innovative. But it's just it has its limitations. And also, there's just something about going to the gym and like competing, you know, I think people still want to see like, Alright, how do I compare to everybody here? Oh, hey, at least I'm not as bad as that person. You know, it's like, you know, so, online training has definitely picked up especially because of COVID people staying home. But I think just the personal touch of a personal trainer in the flesh, nothing, nothing to beat it.
Well, yeah, so our main target is normally independent gym owners who have their own brand, or franchise, gym owners that are part of the franchise system. And their franchise system, their corporate franchise allows them to outsource and do some management that way. Some of them are very restricted on how they can run. Then you have the corporate gyms, the la fitnesses, 24 Hour Fitness, some of the big chains, right? Or the big corporate owned where they all they're all owned by the corporate. And here's the thing, they're not going to ever want no anybody to know if they outsource. Right? So a lot of times I can't mention all of our customers because some of them we can't they don't want their customers or competitors know that there's another company and they're actually doing outsourcing. So it's going to incognita. We wear their colors and all that sort of stuff. But the opportunity or or I guess going back to your post COVID strategy, right? So to kind of get into it. Yeah, the opportunity. I think it's huge. We've come out of COVID actually stronger and stronger position. One just being smart finally financially as a as a company leader, but coming out of it. Think about the liability gym owners have now as far as payroll, as far as compensation workers come, you know, anything that goes on now there's some talk whether it's going to be legal a constitution or not, we don't know yet. But mandated vaccines, you know, they don't want that on their payroll, they don't want to have that hassle. So a lot of we're looking like, how do I take this off my plate, they extra liability of everything that goes into personal training. So there's a lot more that are open to it. Because part of our outsourcing just everything is outsourced to us. The trainers, they don't work for the gym owner, they work for my company, they get a payroll for my company. So my insurance covers those trainers, everything. So everything's under my roof. Yeah, we're just giving you guys a check as a gym owner.
Yeah, so absolutely. That's the attraction of the gym business, right? Is that every current draft tanning salons? This, you know, anytime you get a recurring draft on a contract or something, then it's it's one of the best ways to do business. Yeah. And so yeah, so our personal training, the average person commits to us for about almost 12 months. So the way we present things, the way we solve people's problems with our personal training, is we're focused on trying to get them to commit to the next 12 months to take just 12 months to commit to, to change the next 12 years of your life. It's kind of how we talk to him about it. Right? The last 12 years of mistakes, give us 12 months, we'll fix them, and we'll add the next 12 months. So it's like photo 12 kind of idea. And so by doing that, we get in where we once we're in a gym, within about one year, we've got anywhere from 12 to 20% of the members of that club on some sort of personal training program with us. That's huge for retention for the for the gym owner, because the more involved that members are in different activities, other than just showing up, they're more likely to retain and to refer friends to the gym.
Yeah, so just going old school I'm naturally a nice guy. And you know, I'm happy we're lucky and I'm just I'm just happy I'm not I don't try to get into I'm just a naturally kind of very much like this. Nothing gets way too high, nothing gets for too long. And when I got into the fitness industry in 2005, it was money, money, money, I was very selfish. I said, a selfish idea. But the company itself valued money numbers at all costs. So as in order for you to get higher and higher, you had to have the willingness to be able to burn and turn people fire, you know, whatever. So it was just a high turnover, high pressure, as far as employees go. And so I think, you know, just like I tell people, I go, Hey, when you go into a restaurant, don't blame the waiter for bad service, blame the people that train the waiter and put up, put that waiter in there unprepared to do a good job, right? You're only as good as your coach. And you're only as good as the people that lead you by example. So for the first, you know, six, seven years of the fitness business, the people that I was being led by, were jerks were just very selfish. It's not, hey, look at everybody working for me, it's, it should have been, hey, I work in for all of you to make, you know, to get you guys better. And so as you guys work from me, and you're going to do it, as I say, I'd like to God, you're replaceable. So that was the mentality. It's an old school gym mentality kind of thing from the 70s and 80s 90s. And I just got that can't, I just can't be sustainable. It's not good. And so finally, I think in 2013, when I started my company, I still kind of carry some of that over into it. And I was realizing some turnover that first year. And I'm like, I gotta change, I looked at the looked in the mirror, I'm very, you know, serving self reflective, and like just self aware that you know what, maybe I am being a jerk of a boss, I call it being a recovering a home of boss, I admit it. And I put it out there and everybody that I talked to my business, because it makes me makes me human, you know, versus being the CEO, Hey, man, this is this guy's admitting that he's a recovering aihole. The boss, yes. So it puts me in my place and reminds me that but, you know, we don't put up with jerks in our company. We want employees to be happy with who they're working with who they're being led by. And I think company culture, since I focused on it, number one reason why we've grown and why we're successful, and why the gym owners enjoy habitus in their gym, is that we have good people, they don't have jerks, you know, making making their customers mad or getting into scuffles with their own employees. So that's been very important. So be itself aware, eventually, and just realize that that's not who I want to be. That's not who I want to be as a leader. And that's the kind of company it's not about me. It's about my employees. And by putting them first and a good company culture, it makes me money for a simple fact.
ah, fair, but firm? Okay, I think that the one I think also, you know, it's not my saying I've taken it from others, but curious and caring. Yeah, I think that's, that's always been very, it's a very popular phrase nowadays. But I think just trying to be genuinely curious about who's working with me, right? Yeah. Again, working with me, they don't work for me, they have a choice. And I want them feel like they work with me, because that's what they really do. And I think a perspective, I try to give any of my managers as they rise up and get promotions, I remind them, when you get promoted, I go, Hey, it's not that they work for you now, okay, you were just managing one or two people, now you're managing, you've got a team of six or seven clubs, whatever that you're trying to do. They don't work for you, they don't make your life easier. They don't work to make you money, you are now responsible for them. And you need to pour even more effort back into them. And so when that perspective clicked in my head, and I and I relate that to my employees now as they move up the company ladder, it makes it makes a world of difference that when you hire a trainer, they're either coming from they're leaving another secure job, or they're putting their hopes and haven't gotten off unemployment because you whatever their situation, they're choosing to work for you. And we've painted a picture of success of this how much you can make and here's this now it's on you to make them make that happen. And so by doing that, we have a lot less turnover. So for example, the industry averages if you hire 10 trainers on January 1, only two of them will be there at the end of the year. So 80% turnover, we've cut that down to where we have a 40% on average turnover throughout the year. So we hired 10 trainers, we've got six of them there at the end of the year. So it's a big deal. And I think it just has a change of focus on how we manage and what's important to us, I don't mind a little less bottom line in my pocket, if it means that we have less turnover, turnover, as you know, costs a lot of money, bring in hiring, training and all that it's a lot of money. And in my industry, it's what was even more costly reputation. You know, so yeah,
Yeah, so I put a focus on trying to just build some social media presence just for me. So I'm a personal trainer, people don't really know it's like, if we call a gym owner still like, who are you? What do you guys, you know, so. So what I'm trying to do is take that where I become you know, I'm Adam, Adam Arnett fitness, you can find me on Instagram at that tagline. And I put a lot, you know, try to put a video to just how I do business how I'm thinking, you know, I put a little admission of hey, I'm recovering. I have a boss video on last week that got a lot of views and entertainment. So it's just me just trying to get that name of I need to become the authority on personal training company culture inside gems, right how to run a gym properly in this. So that's what I'm trying to do by doing a lot more social media presence for myself through the main ones, you get LinkedIn, Facebook, you got your Instagram, those are the big ones that are most important. As far as a company brand, I think that feeds off of me personally. So if people can if people in the gym industry see, hey, that's Adam our net. Alright, what does he do? All right, well, I'm a personal training. So and once again, just because some gyms don't want, they want us when they're toddlers, they want to share their jerseys, right? Their logos, they don't want the members to see anything different. Whereas some gym owners, like know what I want, I want you guys to have your own brand I want you to be I want everybody to know you're separate in my gym, you know, in case crap hits the fan, I guess is what you're worried about. Right? So it's hard for us because when we operate in multiple brands, it's hard for us to here's the thing about us, that's a challenge that might just touch on it. If we go on their Facebook, let's just say, you know, I can say Anytime Fitness is, you know, one of our companies, they have a lot of franchisees that work with us. And if we go on their website or their Facebook, it's our putting element personal training the members like why am I seeing this? Who are they what are they doing but instead we'd like to put Anytime Fitness personal training and run and put our put our photos up and our personnel and promoter clients and stuff that way. They try to use the Anytime Fitness brand. They spend 10s of millions on an anyways making those things and borrow that and put that on their Facebook and use that. So it's hard for me to brand this business just because it's not really a it's not a standalone business with a brick and mortar. It's like we operate inside gyms. So I just don't see it yet that we've been able to be like, somebody said, Hey, I need personal training, hey, it's like Pepsi Cola, go get a coke go get it passionate. Not you got to go to element. I don't see that really being a household name.
as I said, the main branding I'm trying to do to get a brand recognition is in the gym industry among the gym owners, management, that type of stuff. Yep.
Yeah, so really the only way we you know, the most important thing is this. It doesn't matter what the average industry does. It's matters what that gym owners been doing. Yeah, so maybe Let's say, Hey, show us your numbers. All right, you're bringing in $10,000 a month, but you're breaking even. So you really know, you don't have a personal training business. Whereas Hey, we can we believe we can do this, you said, we believe that if we're in here, we're gonna be able to generate $35,000 of revenue. And we'll give you X percent of it, or guaranteed rent. So right away, we just say, hey, right away, we're going to give you, you know, $4,000 a month rent guaranteed, well, that's 4000 more a month than what you're making now without the headache, right? You know, and then here's the upside, if we do if we hit the numbers we want, here's how much more you're going to get. So there's different ways for us to structure that. But that's really the only way to do it is what are you doing currently? Are you happy with it? If not, here's what we're gonna do. Here's what we can offer you. And either we do business or we don't?
Yeah, I think it's just kind of like something I've been hitting on lately is, you know, you just need to have ultimate self awareness. And so it's one thing to be self aware that, hey, I'm a jerk, or I'm always late for this, or I'm always been, you know, just whatever your shortcoming is, right? It's not that difficult to realize that the biggest challenge is to change it, and to stick to that change. So when I say that I tell people that, hey, I'm a recovering a hell of a boss. You know, it's sort of like, you know, think about that one buddy is like, I know, I drink too much at a party. Well, that means every time he's gonna use that as an excuse as to why every weekend, he's still partying like an animal. Hey, I'm sorry, I won't do that. Again, you know, the party next weekend. Same thing, right? So I think a mistake just for everybody out there, if you make a commitment, if you if you're like me handle it any hold the Boston Mormon, admit it openly to my employees. But then I go off, and I use it as a as a Get Out of Jail Free card, like every you know, I'm still being a jerk every other day to I'm going to tell me, I'm sorry. Remember, I'm an eight, you know, jerk of a boss and trying to work on that. But then I go off again, and again and again. And then repeat offender, then it's just false, then it's just, it's just for show, right? So you have to make sure you're self aware. Find out you know, even as publicly ask your friends, ask your co workers, co workers, what was the top three things that you think I need to improve on? Give me the good, the bad, and the ugly. And then once that happens, fine, make an action but stick with it. You've got in the habit, hold yourself accountable. Make changes, it doesn't happen overnight. I didn't go from being an A all the boss to being you know, super boss overnight. It takes a while to do it. But it's persistence and consistence. And ultimately, it's whether you care about changing or not. So, you know, change comes with it from within, but be extremely self aware. Drop the pride, have some humility, and make the changes and stay with them. And here we go down. I do admit it every once a while. I that that old? That old Pitbull comes out. It happens. Yeah. But now, instead of letting it just go, I do, man. Three hours. Okay, I was a little rough on my manager there. Let me call him up. We apologize. And make make things right. And sure enough, you call him up and you're like, Yeah, you did come down hard on me. I understand. You know, you don't really meet him. I think no, I should just, I just want make sure everything's good. So at least do it now. I think those are, I think that's the life lesson. That has made me a good business leader. You know, in the last 567 years, for sure.
Job Titles:
- Business Coach and Consultant
Dr. Lance Knaub is our guest today. At one point, Lance was a burned-out entrepreneur, but he overcame those challenges and ultimately built a 7 figure multi-office Physical Therapy company.
Mary Harcourt is the Inventor and the CEO of CosmoGlo Light, which is one of the biggest innovations to hit the beauty industry. Before that, she ran a lash salon in Los Angeles for several years but when Covid hit, she was forced to quickly pivot her business and shift gears.
As it turns out, she had already been working on a prototype for beauty room lighting so this newfound time gave her an opportunity to switch her focus entirely on launching CosmoGlo. Fast forward a few years, CosmoGlo is now a million-dollar company that has opened many doors for Mary, from being a speaker and a guest on various podcasts to launching her own podcast.
She believes that if she can do it, so can everyone else, and there is so much power in that!
Matthew Davis has built a multimillion-dollar law firm around risk management. When you're building a business, prevention is always better than cure. Our guest today has some great tips for proactively protecting your business.
Meet Matthew Davis. Matthew is an attorney and the CEO of Davis Business Law. Throughout the years, Matthew managed to lead his solely owned firm through over 1000% percent growth, making it one of the very few law firms ever to make the Inc 5000 list.
With over twenty-five years of experience helping business leaders with their legal and entrepreneurial matters, Matthew now teaches them how to deal with their vulnerabilities so they can capitalize on their opportunities. He's also the author of a phenomenal book called The Art of Preventing Stupid, which explains how businesses can systematically and proactively protect themselves against threats.
Matthew is all about taking a preventative approach to business. He believes that it's better to prevent certain issues than deal with them when they're no longer easy to control.
Todd Randall is the eight-time CEO and an inspiring business coach. He's started 8 businesses in total, including spas, gyms, a construction company, a consulting firm, etc. Not only did he successfully exit three of these businesses, but he's still effectively managing four of them remotely. Generating $6 million annually, Todd's business enterprise worships freedom more than money which is his ultimate secret to success. Todd's latest venture is a coaching practice where he enthusiastically shares his experience with other fellow entrepreneurs.
During his long professional experience, Todd realized that running a business can cost you your health if you let it. That's why he's so passionate about helping thriving entrepreneurs turn their lives around.